Empire & Ecolitan (12 page)

“…
TWO, THREE, FOUR
…two, three, four…two, three, four…”

Jimjoy whispered the cadences to himself as he wound up the exercise routine. Sweat poured down over his forehead, as much a consequence of the humidity and stillness of the air in the room as of any real heat.

Outside, the rain poured down, more like a tropical storm on most T-type planets. On Accord, the storm qualified as the normal evening shower. The summer pattern was relatively constant—cool, crisp mornings, increasing warmth and humidity as the day unfolded until late afternoon or early evening, when the clouds piled up and poured over the low mountains to the west and saturated the Institute. Once in a while, there were days that remained clear into the night, and when that happened the temperature dropped another ten degrees.

Not that the rains seemed to stop Institute activities. The only concession was the number of covered walkways between the major buildings. That and the solid construction, although Jimjoy wondered why all the buildings consisted solely of natural materials, either woods or stone. No synthetics, no metals, and no buildings of more than two stories.

That had been true in Harmony as well. Only the buildings housing the Council, the Court, and the Governor had exceeded that height.

He pushed away the delaying thoughts and squared himself for the next series of exercises, designed to exercise his combat training reflexes. They did little more than keep his skills from deteriorating too rapidly. Jimjoy needed practice with others, and used the Service facilities on Alphane or elsewhere to the maximum whenever possible. By himself, he found it hard to push hard enough to keep the edge he needed. Solitary exercises were neither fun, interesting, nor competitive. Only necessary.

Outside the window, the even sound of the heavy rain lessened as the evening storm began to lift. Jimjoy noted the decreasing precipitation, but doggedly continued his regime, pausing briefly every so often to wipe the sweat from his eyes with the short sleeves of his exercise shirt.

As the rainfall drizzled to a halt, so did the Special Operative, panting from a routine that should not have left him quite so exhausted, although his endurance had improved slightly since he had first arrived at the Institute. He hoped the better condition would balance somewhat his lack of combat practice.

He swallowed, still finding it hard to accept that the marginally higher gravity of Accord should have made such a difference. It did not seem that much greater than T-norm, not enough to affect short bursts of exercise, but it still took a toll during prolonged exertion.

“Wonder if it would make a difference in combat troops…”

Shaking his head at the unconscious verbalization, he pulled off the soaked exercise gear and laid it on the rack in the closet. Then he pulled on the standard heavy cloth robe supplied by the Institute and draped a towel over his shoulder.

He trudged out the door that had no lock and down the hall toward the showers, wondering once again why there were no showers attached to individual rooms.

“No locks, no theft, no showers…”

There was no theft at the Institute, or so he had been told. And he had lost nothing. As far as he could determine, no one had even entered his room while he was gone, not even for cleaning. Each resident was responsible for that.

Jimjoy smiled. No Imperial officer ever had to clean his own base quarters. With his limited cleaning experience, Jimjoy doubted that his room matched the sparkling state of the student rooms, but neither was it obviously cluttered or grubby.

The showers were empty, and Jimjoy sighed as he immersed himself in the stream of hot water. At least the ecological purists had not done away with the basic pleasures of a hot shower and soap.

Unfortunately, each shower was vented with liberal quantities of cool fresh air coming from outside through angled louvers. The Special Operative decided he did not want to be showering there in winter.

He shivered anyway as he cut off the water and began to towel himself dry—quickly. He wrapped the heavy robe around himself, grateful for the warmth of the thick cloth.

Thlap, thlap, thlap
.

The shower clogs, also Institute supplied, were big and heavy, announcing his presence with every step back toward his room. Half the time, especially in the morning, he just went barefoot.

Back inside his room, he stuffed his exercise clothes into the bag he used for laundry, estimating that he had another day before he had to take care of the mundane business of wash.

Given his lack of previous experience, he was glad he was using the Institute-supplied uniforms rather than his own.

He smiled faintly as he sat down on the narrow but comfortable bed, still wearing nothing but robe and clogs, and reflected on how sharp most of the senior Ecolitans looked in the same tunics he wore. He had watched some of them wash them right alongside Jimjoy, but somehow they didn't look like the end of the day the first thing in the morning.

With a sigh, he stood up and walked back to the closet, where he stripped off the robe and pulled on a pair of briefs. Even though he had been informed that most Ecolitans slept in the nude, with nothing but a sheet and a standard quilt, that was one accommodation Jimjoy found himself unable to make.

By now, with the window completely open, both the temperature and the humidity in the room had dropped, and there was already a hint of night chill. The Imperial Major turned off the lights, wondering again at their concession to modernity, and settled into his bed, drawing the heavy comforter around him.

Aside from a few murmurs, occasional light footsteps, and the calls of night insects, the Institute was still. So still that virtually every night the quiet left him thinking. Was it the architecture, with the solid walls and natural materials? Or were the Ecolitans all ghostlike and silent people?

He turned over as the faint sound of footsteps came down the hallway from the shower rooms.

He sat up as the footsteps stopped outside his door, swung his bare feet onto the rug as the door opened noiselessly. In the backlight from the hall he could see a figure in a robe sliding inside the doorway and the door closing as noiselessly as it had opened.

Just as noiselessly, he hoped, Jimjoy slid to the foot of the bed, hoping to catch the intruder unaware.

The robed figure moved toward the bed.

Jimjoy jumped—to find himself holding all too closely the warm figure of a woman who was clearly wearing nothing beneath the robe.

“Do you always attack so directly, Major?” The voice was low, almost breathless, with the hint of a laugh…somehow familiar to the Special Operative.

Not Thelina. No…Jimjoy released his hold and stepped back, to find the woman close against his chest again, her arms going around his neck.

“Are you always…this…direct?”

“My secret…” Her voice was low in his left ear.

“Temmilan—” he blurted.

“It took you long enough.” Her lips brushed his earlobe.

Jimjoy's hands slid down to her waist and lifted her away and onto the bed. Sitting, not lying, he told himself. He sat down next to her, conscious now of her warmth and his chill. He stifled a shiver.

Her arm went around him, her fingers digging into his right shoulder, drawing him closer.

He disengaged himself and stood up, crossing the room to get his robe, knowing that if he had not immediately separated himself he never would, knowing how vulnerable he was to her softness and warmth. This time, as he reached for the robe, he did shiver.

After momentarily debating whether to turn on the lights, he decided against it, but belted his robe firmly and sat down at the foot of the bed, keeping some distance between them.

“You don't accept gifts, Major? Even willing ones?”

“I enjoy the packaging, Temmilan,” he answered, knowing that what he said was stupid, but trying to say something that would neither entice nor antagonize the Ecolitan. She could make his mission even more impossible if she chose.

“Someone else, or someone left at home, then?”

“Something like that.” He paused. “Not that I don't appreciate the thought…and the interest.”

“Not enough, apparently.”

He winced at the bitter edge to her voice, glad she could not see more than his profile, he hoped.

“Too single-minded, I guess…”

“
Most
men are.”

Jimjoy had to repress a laugh at her attempt to insinuate that his rejection was tied to his lack of masculinity. He wondered what attack would be next.

“I can only share the weaknesses of my sex,” he added.

“You do have them, I'm sure.”

“You know them already, or you wouldn't be here.”

“Perhaps you have more than I guessed.”

Jimjoy stood, then walked over to the study table, where he turned on the small lamp.

“Should I shed some light on the subject in question?” He turned back to the Ecolitan historian. “Assuming you would like to have some illumination.”

“Puns, and erudition yet, and from a clandestine ki—source.”

Jimjoy picked up the straight-backed wooden chair and twisted it. He sat down with his forearms resting on the back, facing Temmilan, who had let her robe fall open. He avoided the view, instead looking her in the eyes.

“Too many assumptions, Temmilan.”

“Oh?”

“Assume that because I'm clandestine, I'm inherently a killer. That because I'm alone, I'm vulnerable to the advances of an extraordinarily attractive woman. That because I don't respond unthinkingly, I can't.” He paused. “Shall I go on?”

“You do reason well.” She pushed a stray lock of her jet-black hair back over her right ear. “You have obviously had to learn to rationalize on a grand scale. Not that it's surprising.”

“So…what do you really want?”

“Haven't I made that clear?” She lifted her weight and let the robe gape further.

Jimjoy kept his expression bemused, struggling to keep his eyes well above her shoulders, and trying to figure out the strange contradiction between seduction and hostility.

“I suppose so…though why is still a bit unclear…”

“Perhaps I think you need conversation of a less violent nature, Major.”

“That's true. We Imperials eat children for breakfast. Raw, preferably, and then ravage the women.”

“Major…”

“And we go in for whips and chains as well, even while we remember the last books we read, perhaps a decade earlier…”

“Major Wright…”

“But I don't understand…do I? One look from a lovely lady is supposed to turn me around. One promise of rapture…and this Imperial officer will be defenseless.”

This time, Jimjoy waited for a response.

“You want me to say you're impossible. You know, that would be the standard feminine line—”

“And if there's something you can't stand, it's being predictably feminine.” His voice was soft. “Even if you've just set up a predictably feminine situation.”

He was rewarded with a laugh, slightly ragged, but a laugh nonetheless.

“Sometimes, Major, just sometimes, you show flashes of inspiration.”

Temmilan's right hand drew the robe close enough to cut off the most provocative angle of the too revealing view, as she straightened up and shifted her weight on the bed.

Jimjoy tensed fractionally, wondering why Temmilan was dragging out the situation, rather than either throwing herself at him or withdrawing gracefully.

Was there a sound in the corridor?

“Only sometimes?” he countered, easing himself off the chair gradually and standing, then shrugging his shoulders, inching backward.

“Fishing for compliments?”

“Hardly. Just fishing.” As he spoke, he reached the door, opened it quickly, and grabbed the fully dressed Ecolitan leaning toward it.

Crunch!

Clannk!

The green-clad man stared at the stunner on the tiles and shook his wrist.

“Sorry about that, friend,” said Jimjoy conversationally. “Now, Temmilan,” he began, as if to finish his talk with her.

Sccr
—

“Ooooffff.” The Ecolitan collapsed in mid-leap from the force of the Major's kick.

“This is getting all too predictable. Temmilan, why don't you take this poor fellow back to whichever garbage heap he came from…and jump in with him.”

Jimjoy yanked the white-faced young Ecolitan from the rug and set him on his feet.

“Very clever, Major. Is dragging in poor bystanders and abusing them your idea of impressing me?”

Jimjoy sighed. Loudly.

“Spare me the posturing, and get the hades out of here.”

Temmilan slowly got up, again letting the robe gape open, nearly baring her breasts and swaying slightly as she did so.

Jimjoy ignored the brazen motion, stepping back and kicking the stunner into the corridor and shoving the still-gasping Ecolitan after the weapon.

“Keep your hands to yourself, killer.” Her voice was so low that only Jimjoy could have heard the words.

“I always intended to.”

Jimjoy waited in the doorway, watching, until the pair disappeared around the corridor corner ten meters away. He almost laughed when he saw Temmilan begin to console the younger man.

Then he closed the door, shaking his head.

The setup was brazen, so brazen, so unlike the underlying sophistication and simplicity he associated with the Accord and the Institute.

He shivered as he understood the full implications.

Then he chuckled, realizing that neither he nor Temmilan could say anything, for exactly the same reasons.

Shaking his head again, he propped the straight-backed chair under the door lever, not that he expected more visitors. But he decided he did need a bit of warning the way things were going.

He took off his robe once more, turned off the light, and climbed back into bed. Intrigue within intrigue or not, he needed some sleep.